Ball State University - Orient Yearbook (Muncie, IN)

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REMINISCENCES OF THE PRESIDENT “On the spot now occupied by the main building of the Terre Haute school there stood, when I was a very small boy, a brick school house known, I think, as the Vigo County Seminary. This school was conducted by a school master of the old type whose name was Benjamin Hayes, familiarly and to this day known and spoken of in Terre Haute as ‘Uncle Benny Hayes.’ With Uncle Benny Hayes in the old County Seminary building on this very spot of ground I spent my first day in school as a boy of seven in the year 1857.’ “My direct connection with the State Normal School dates from the opening of the institution on January 6, 1870. On the morning of that day when the school opened its doors to receive students, I was one of eighteen or twenty persons who offered themselves a willing sacrifice to the first experiment in Indiana in the professional training of teachers for the public schools. “Although, except for a period of three years, I have been connected with the State Normal as a student, teacher and officer since its opening, I recall this first day more vividly than any other day in its history. At nine o’clock the president called the little group of persons present to order, and the venerable Barnabas C. Hobbs, then President of the Board, conducted the first chapel exercises by reading a lesson from the Bible and then kneeling on the hard, bare floor and offering a fervent prayer for the success of the State Normal School in the years to come.” “It requires no prophet’s eye to see that educational Indiana is entering upon an era of enlarged opportunity and enriched usefulness to the commonwealth. That this institution may do its full part in meeting the larger responsibilities which lie at the doors of all schools of the State is my hope and prayer.”

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WILLIAM WOOD PARSONS President

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